Multimedia Principle: Adding Graphics to Words Improves Learning

Some think that a designer’s own technical capabilities and intuitive beliefs are far more influential on the design of most training materials than any proven, research-based principles.(1) But even if it’s totally natural to be guided by your skills and intuitions, how do you know whether they’re leading you in the right direction?

With the prevalence of easy-to-use tools like Articulate Studio ’13 and Articulate Storyline, nearly anyone can create training—even if they don’t know how to design training. Which is why I think it’s a good idea to know about the research-based guidelines for designing instructional materials that lead to better learning results.

Richard Mayer is a professor of psychology at the University of California who studies how to present information in ways that help people better understand it, including how to use words and pictures more effectively. He has spent over 25 years researching how the design of multimedia instruction—lessons containing words (printed or spoken) and pictures (illustrations, photos, animations, or video)—affects learning.

Mayer and his colleagues have established a number of guidelines for designing instructional materials that have been shown to improve learning. One of Mayer’s guidelines for designing instructional materials is the multimedia principle, which simply says that people learn better from words and pictures than from words alone. (2)

In ten different studies, Mayer and his colleagues compared learning about various mechanical and scientific processes from lessons that used words alone to those that used words and pictures. In all ten, learners who took a multimedia lesson comprised of words and pictures performed better than those who received the same information only in words. On average, there was an 89% improvement in learning when pictures were included. (3)

Sounds like a good reason to get rid of lessons with nothing but screens and screens of text, right? Yes—but before you rush to fill your screens with pictures, note that not all pictures are equally effective. In some future posts, we’ll look at a few more of Mayer’s principles to learn the specifics of how to use visuals to improve learning.

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6 Comments

Nice post. I wonder, if you take this one step further, how this applies to motion, and moving graphics. In your example above, would the training more effective if those arrows were actually rotating clockwise? At what point do graphics no longer add to the effectiveness of instruction and instead begin to take away from it?

Good point JP. I'd say if the animations would strengthen the visual in a natural way it potentially could strengthen the experience e,g, the graph bars rising equally and then the green one bypassing it the way it does. Add the some dramatic background audio to bring the point home...

And never forget the power of interaction with the learner... instructional designers need to also create some activity during eLearning to keep learner focused and engaged. But I also definitely agree that pictures/graphics add so much more learning retention to text based modules.

Those are some great points. There is some similar research on animations and sound also which I'm eager to share as well. Much of it is in Mayer &amp; Clark's book too. I think it would be fun to take a poll and see where people land on those and how that compares to the research.

I've enjoyed the series of posts on visuals that Mike Taylor has put together--nice job. Mayer's book is on my list and is now even higher.
Here's a similar article demonstrating 25 effective tips for creating visuals in training. They're drawn from another book I highly recommend by Connie Malamed (Visual Language for Designers).
http://blog.convergencetraining.com/how-to-design-great-training-materials